Amazon introduces lending library for Kindles

NEW YORK — Amazon.com Inc. said Thursday that it is starting a lending library for Kindle owners, letting them borrow one electronic book per month.

Borrowers have to subscribe to Amazon’s Prime service, which provides free two-day shipping and streaming movies for $79 per year.

The books can’t be read on phones, PCs or tablet computers, even though there are Kindle apps for these devices. That restriction is reminiscent of Amazon’s strategy of a few years ago, when the company restricted purchased books to being read on Kindles to drive sales of the e-reader devices.

Amazon says it’s paying publishers for the right to lend the books, usually for a fixed fee. In some cases, it’s paying the wholesale price every time a book is checked out. Amazon says the library has thousands of books, including current bestsellers such as Suzanne Collins’ “The Hunger Games” trilogy.

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“With this launch, we expect three immediate results: Kindle owners will read even more, publisher revenues will grow, and authors will see larger royalty checks,” Russ Grandinetti, vice president of Kindle content, said in a statement.

Kindle users recently got access to electronic books from public libraries as well. Those can be read in the Kindle apps.